Appearing before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on September 13th was U.S. General Services Administration Acting Administrator, Dan Tangherlini. Tangherlini testified that changes GSA made within the past five months has projected to save more than $11 million by eliminating conferences and cutting travel. These cost savings measures are the byproduct of the Las Vegas scandal in which tax payers footed the bill for an $800,000 GSA employee conference.
Savings from cutting conferences and travel are only the beginning to transforming the GSA into a more cost efficient agency. For example, $5.5 million will be saved by implementing ideas generated by GSA employees. Furthermore, Senior Executive Service bonuses have been slashed by 85%, and performance awards have been halted while a new employee award program can be renegotiated. Additional cost saving measures were developed by consolidating key agency functions such as budget, human resources, and technology to improve performance and cost effectiveness. The consolidation of finance and accounting operations will also increase transparency, accountability, and oversight on GSA spending.
These cost saving measures were implemented after Tangherlini issued a Top to Bottom review of all agency operations to increase accountability, efficiency, and cost savings. The review has contributed to eliminating wasteful spending, operational redundancies and improving agency operations to produce all over value and savings for taxpayers. While many improvements have been made, Tangherlini has made it clear that these are ongoing reforms, with more to come.
